[BL]Hunted by the God of Destruction

Elias's eyes didn't leave Victor's as the realization hit him like a jolt of ice water to the spine. He didn't dislike Victor because of the man's danger, his sharpness, or even the fear that rolled off him like an aura. No, Elias hated the man for something simpler, more human. It was the quiet, suffocating entitlement of the kind that was earned, perhaps, but never questioned. The belief that people like Elias, like Ruo, were just pieces on a board, to be moved around as it suited the game.

Victor's smile didn't reach his eyes, and the way he looked at Elias made the room feel like it had shrunk, like Victor was seeing right through him, measuring the threat, the potential, and the danger.

But Elias didn't flinch.

"You do realize that I can make you disappear in this building and no one would bat an eye?" Victor asked. 

Elias didn't flinch.

His eyes, lit not by bravado but by something sharper resolve, exhaustion, a stubborn refusal to bend, held Victor's without wavering. The room felt colder, heavier, like the walls were listening now. But Elias had lived through silence before. He knew how to stand inside it and still breathe.

"Yes," he said, his voice soft and measured. "I do know, but I have the vague idea that not even the Numen family knows where Ruo is." 

Victor's expression didn't change—no twitch of the brow, no sharp inhale—but the stillness that followed was louder than rage. Measured silence. The kind used by men who didn't need to shout to make someone bleed.

The phone on the desk sat between them like a loaded weapon.

Elias didn't look away. He didn't need to. The words had already left his mouth, and there was no putting them back. He'd meant them. Every syllable. Because beneath the exhaustion, beneath the bitterness, beneath the guilt of not doing more, was the truth: no one had answers. Not even the ones who claimed to own the game.

Victor leaned back, steepling his fingers. "Bold," he said after a beat. "And dangerous."

"Let me be clear. I don't care about kissing your family's ass for money or power. Ruo is my friend and i care what happens with her." Elias exhaled. "I've got voicemails from her." 

Victor's eyes narrowed, just enough for the shift in his expression to register like a flicker of light at the edge of a deep tunnel.

"You've what?" he said, slowly—carefully—like Elias had just offered him a thread in a room full of dynamite.

Elias didn't move. "Voicemails. From her number. One last week. One two nights ago. Static and silence. Then—her voice. She said, Don't trust the Gods. Don't trust him." He let the words settle like dust on marble.

Victor didn't react at first. But his fingers tapped once against the desk, then stopped.

"And you didn't come to us immediately?"

"I didn't think I could trust you," Elias said plainly. "Still don't, for the record."

His voice was steady, calm in a way that only exhaustion could make it. "But you asked what I want? I want to know if those voicemails were real. I want to know who she meant by him. And why the wallpaper was changed to that quote."

He paused, trying to find the right words, his gaze fixed somewhere just past Victor's shoulder, as if looking directly at the man would cost too much.

"The phone only has one file now. No history, no backup. Just one message and that quote. And I don't know if you ever actually knew Ruo, but that isn't her. And I'm damn sure it's not a hint she left for anyone."

Victor didn't blink. Just reached forward, turned the phone slowly in his hand again, letting the screen catch the light.

Elias watched the reflection of his own glasses glint in the black surface of the desk, the morning sun catching on the lens like it had chosen sides.

"But you said it was hers," Victor said at last.

"I thought it was," Elias replied. "I assumed. The model's the same; the case is hers… but the serial number doesn't match." He paused, then added with a quieter breath, "I didn't open the file. I don't have the skills, if it's anything more than a simple virus, I'd just trigger it."

Victor's fingers drummed once against the glass of the desk, then stopped. He didn't look at the phone again. He looked at Elias, fully, with the kind of scrutiny that stripped pretense from skin and left only bone and blood beneath.

"You brought me a possibly compromised device," he said finally, voice even. "Walked into my office, in my building, with an unknown file and a story about voicemails and wallpaper riddles, and expected me to… what? Trust you?"

Elias didn't respond. He didn't look away either.

Victor leaned forward slightly. "You're either remarkably stupid," he said, "or you're smarter than you look, and this is a play."

"I'm tired," Elias said. "My friend is missing and I have to meet the Devil himself just to have a chance of finding something about her." He lost his filter; he was indeed tired of being used by his professor by spiraling and by being, again, attracted to the gravity of the Numen family. 

Victor stilled.

For a breath, two, maybe more, he didn't speak, didn't blink. Just watched Elias with the kind of unreadable stillness that made you feel like your words had landed somewhere far deeper than you intended. Not because they were wrong, but because they were too true.

Then, slowly, Victor leaned back again, the chair creaking faintly beneath him.

"Careful," he said at last, his tone quieter now. Not gentler; Victor Numen didn't do gentle, but quieter, edged in something that might've been recognition. "You keep calling me the devil, and you'll forget who taught him the game."

Elias chuckled. "So you do accept it. Fine." He raised his hands in mock surrender. "I have nothing to do with it from now on. Just let me know if she is dead or alive and safe." He grabbed his bag to leave. "Oh, I will remove my things from her apartment, don't worry, I don't want your money."

Victor didn't stop him.

Didn't rise. Didn't threaten. Didn't offer comfort.

He simply watched, silent and still, like the eye of a storm, letting Elias gather his things, letting the words hang in the air like the echo of something inevitable.

Elias stood slowly, adjusting the strap of his bag, the motion sharp and controlled. There was a faint tremor beneath the surface of exhaustion and frustration, the kind of bruised hope that didn't know if it had been crushed or just misplaced.

As he reached the door, Victor spoke again.

"She's not dead."

Elias stilled.

Victor's voice followed like the brush of a blade against fabric, clean, precise, and cold. "And if you want her to stay alive, don't go back to the apartment until I say so."

The words landed like a lock clicking into place.

Elias turned his head slightly, just enough to speak over his shoulder.

"Understood."

And then he left, leaving behind the quiet hum of isolation protocols and the man with blood-red eyes still tapping a phone that should never have existed.